'Babel,' 'Departed,' 'Sunshine' Top Oscar Noms on DVD

Warner Home Video's The Departed, nominated for best picture, arrives on DVD Feb. 13

This year's crop of Academy Award nominees is a mixed bag for home video fans, with only about half the nominated features already on disc or announced for DVD release.

Of those films already on DVD, most were nominated in technical categories. Most major award noms will hit DVD shortly before or well after the Feb. 25 Oscar ceremony, a byproduct of Hollywood's traditional late-year award-season run.

Little Miss Sunshine, from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, currently is the only best picture nominee available on disc. Two others will hit shelves before the ceremony: Warner Home Video's The Departed arrives Feb. 13, and Paramount Home Entertainment's Babel streets Feb. 20.

Also nominated for best picture were Letters From Iwo Jima and The Queen.

Little Miss Sunshine, an indie comedy starring Greg Kinear and Steve Carell, also picked up a nominations for best original screenplay and two acting honors — Alan Arkin for best supporting actor and 10-year-old Abigail Breslin for best supporting actress.

The mobster epic The Departed also picked up noms for adapted screenplay and film editing. Mark Wahlberg was nominated for best supporting actor, and Martin Scorsese is the sentimental favorite to take home his first Oscar for best director. Scorsese has six previous nominations without a win.

The character drama Babel earned a total of seven nominations, behind the not-yet-announced-for-DVD Dreamgirls, which has eight (but was shut out of best picture). Babel also earned nominations for original screenplay, original musical score, film editing, best director for Alejandro González Iñárritu, and two for supporting actress — Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi.

Meryl Streep earned her 14th nomination, and her 11th in the best lead actress category, for Fox's The Devil Wears Prada. She previously won a supporting actress Oscar for 1979's Kramer vs. Kramer and best actress for 1982's Sophie's Choice.

The top-grossing film of 2006, Buena Vista Home Entertainment's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, earned nominations for best art direction, sound editing, sound mixing and visual effects.

Also nominated in the visual effects category are two offerings from Warner Home Video: Superman Returns and Poseidon.

Two of the three nominees for best animated feature are on DVD: Buena Vista's Cars and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's Monster House. The third, Happy Feet, arrives March 20 from Warner.

Other nominees already on DVD include Universal Studios Home Entertainment's The Black Dahlia and United 93, Sony's Click, Fox's Water and The Illusionist, Paramount's An Inconvenient Truth and Magnolia's Jesus Camp.